" When I picked this book off a long forgotten shelf, I was motivated by only the slightest curiosity and the consolation that it would only take an hour or two to read. Several hours later, I am incredibly glad I did. This little gem was one of the first things Helen Keller published when she was 23, the same age I am now. In her vivid descriptions of the world as she smelled and felt and imagined it, her youthful passion for life truly shines. As I read her words, I felt I was reading my own feelings of wonder and burgeoning possibility for the future captured more aptly and sincerely than I could ever have managed. Despite, or maybe because of, the darkness and solitude forced upon her by her handicap, she paints an uplifting world in her imagination full of brightness and joy that spills off the page. The middle section, describing her education, drags a bit, though it was still interesting to understand the process by which she acquired her miraculous capacity for communication. The true beauty of her prose, however, lies in the beginning, where she reminisces on her Alabama childhood, and the end, where she discusses her literary passions. Those are the pages that make this small book a worthwhile read in its own right, independent from the celebrity of its author. "
— Ann, 12/12/2013